A World Without Bees

 A World Without Bees by Allison Benjamin and Brian McCallum

2010

Weight: 10 oz

Method of Disposal: Donating

The trajectory of pollinators, one of the more frightening futures to contemplate.  The critters themselves are always fascinating.  The first chapter or two of this book gives you the fun facts about bees--that the males only live to mate and then die, that sick bees will leave the hive to die so that infection does not spread to the others, that they will not defecate inside the hive.  They are clean and regimented.  They have a plan, they follow the plan, and they perform their dance well.  God save the Queen.

But humans, being the destructive force we are, make it increasingly challenging for the bees to survive.  This book puts forth a wide variety of theories and introduces us to the people who study and stand behind those theories, and they suggest that the disappearance of bees cannot be connected to any one thing we do as earthly inhabitants.  The pesticides and herbicides are a frequently accused culprit, as our parasites and disease that are spread when bees are transported from place to place to increase pollination and the productivity on farms.  A small group of people argue that cellphone use is confusing the bees trying to get back to their hives, though this idea is not popular in the scientific community.  As always, global warming and large-scale farming lacking in diversity of crops are massive problems that we are not sure if the bees can adapt to quickly enough.

Throughout history, bees have disappeared in large numbers periodically, but the current trend seems to be far more alarming to beekeepers all over the world.  In parts of China, honeybees have completely disappeared and people are responsible for pollinating the plants themselves, which is a more laborious project than might be expected.

This book is a great introduction to bees, what life might look like without them, and the massive obstacles facing beekeepers today.  It is clear there is much more to learn, but I feel more prepared to jump into the abyss of information that has been cropping up in the last decade or so.  It does nothing for improving my mood, needless to say, but it is clearly important.

No is Not Enough

 No is Not Enough: Resisting Trump's Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need by Naomi Klein
2017
Weight: 14 oz
Method of Disposal: Mailing to Someone

Do not let the current climate wear you down.  

It is incredibly hard.  

I do not always know that I can do it.  It is challenging to dedicate your life to your work and family, and then have anything left over to help change the current tide of politics, but we all have a part to play in this community.  This book was written before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and in it Klein warns about what will happen once it hits.  Only, she did not know what "it" was.  She writes, 

"So far Trump's unending atmosphere of of crisis has been sustained largely through his own over-the-top rhetoric--declaring cities "crime infested" sites of "carnage" when in fact the violent crime rate had been declining nationwide for decades; hammering away at a manufactured narrative about an immigrant crime wave; and generally insisting Obama destroyed the country.  Soon enough, however, Trump could well have some crises to exploit that are distinctly more real, since crisis is the logical conclusion of his politics on every front." 

So here we are, and I am exhausted.  I remember a time when there was not BIG news every. single. day.  Sometimes, multiple times a day.  He is still on the offensive and all over the board, even as Covid-19 rages.  Remember the early days of the pandemic when there were news stories coming out of California saying that ICE was still conducting raids even as there was talk of releasing people from prison due to not being able to keep them safe.  At least it made the news back then, I suppose, so we would know and could be outraged.  We have unmarked security forces patrolling protests.  Do you remember when people dying in a protest in America had become shocking?  Now, it is hard to keep up with who is getting killed and where.  Meanwhile, the "President" chuckles about staying in office past his term.  

Klein writes, "People can develop responses to sequential or gradual change.  But if dozens of changes come from all directions at once, the hope is that populations will rapidly become exhausted and over-whelmed, and will ultimately swallow their bitter medicine."  She had already laid all of this out for us in her powerful book, The Shock Doctrine.  In No is Not Enough she writes about how some populations who have been through a shock previously are less susceptible to fascism.  They see it, and they rise up and refuse it.  She writes about the inverse of the "Shock Doctrine."  A "People's Shock" rising up from below.  She seems to have, somehow, maintained some hope that globally we can rise up and ask for more, save our planet from global warming, implement a culture of caring, do the opposite of what Trump proposes in the Art of the Deal.  My optimism was waning as I read, and I found it hard to envision, but I do not want us to stop trying.

She says it is important to have a Utopia to strive for and work for.  The one she describes seems worth a good fight.